The
Salton Sea is both an officially designated sump
for agricultural drainage and valuable habitat for
more than 380 bird species.

A California-based environmental think tank issued a
report Feb. 10 that criticizes federal and state efforts to
restore the Salton Sea to the ecological and recreational
haven it was during the 1960s.

According to the report, put out by the Pacific Institute
for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, the
joint federal-state restoration plan is based too much on
reducing the sea's salinity and stabilizing its elevation
instead of other, more serious, water quality factors.

The feasibility study, spearheaded by the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and California's Salton Sea Authority, is not
slated for release until Jan. 1, 2000.

The institute's report is critical of the direction this
study has taken to date and is intended to steer the
restoration effort toward an environmentally sustainable and
socially equitable outcome.

The Salton Sea, located 35 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico
border in southeastern California, is the largest inland
body of water in the state. It is both an officially
designated sump for agricultural drainage and valuable
habitat for more than 380 bird species. Agricultural
drainage water, high in fertilizer residues, salts and other
pollutants, sustains the Salton Sea; yet is also linked to
the massive fish kills and chronic bird mortality that
characterize the sea.

Increasing concern over the ecological health of the sea
in recent years led to the establishment of the joint
state-federal restoration effort. The institute's criticism
includes:

The project's recommendations for restoring the sea
are being driven by arbitrary and unrealistic timelines,
not by scientific evidence.

The project's focus on measures to reduce the sea's
salinity and stabilize its elevation flies in the face of
evidence that the gravest threats to the ecosystem are
attributable to other water quality factors.

The project has failed to seriously consider the
implications of permitting salinity in the sea to
continue to increase, which in the long-term could be the
most cost-beneficial and ecologically sound
approach.

The project has failed to assess the negative
ramifications that some of its proposals could have on
surrounding ecosystems, such as the Colorado River delta
and the Upper Gulf of California.

"Public support for the restoration project is based on
the expectation that the plan will improve the ecological
health of the Salton Sea," said Jason Morrison, the project
director at the institute. "But our analysis shows that the
cornerstone of the plan, focusing on stabilizing the
salinity and elevation of the sea will not solve the sea's
ecological problems.

The Institute's report offers a practical alternative
framework for restoration of the sea that emphasizes
environmental sustainability and the participation of all
affected stakeholders in the Salton basin and Mexico.